And let them know that I am Machiavel, admired am I by those that hate me most.The Jew Of Malta by Christopher Marlow

When I posted a blog yesterday, Game and set to Putin (it wasn’t quite match) which commented on how while Russia has shrugged off the American and EU sanctions, European farmers were being hit hard by Russia’s retaliatory ban on foodstuff from the EU, Mike St. Mark replied that while the Russian leader was running rings round the USA, EU and Ukraine, he didn’t think it was quite game and set at that point.

It is now. And possibly match too. I just has a belated look at US financial services news site Zero Hedge and found this. Tyler Durden who writes the posts has feeds from AP, Reuters, Press Association and all the rest at his fingertips so he’s way ahead of us workaday bloggers:

Last week Germany reported that in the second quarter, its GDP declined by 0.2%, worse than Wall Street consensus. This happened a few shorts days after Italy reported a second consecutive decline in its own GDP, becoming the first Europen country to enter a triple-dip recession. What’s worse, Europe’s slowdown took place before the brunt of Russian sanctions hit. Surely in the third quarter the GDP of Germany, a nation whose exports accounts for 41% of GDP, will be even worse, with whisper numbers of -1% being thrown casually around, but one thing is certain: Europe is about to enter its third recession since the Lehman collapse just as we forecast at the end of 2013, a “triple-dip” which may become an outright depression unless Draghi injects a few trillion in credit money (which will do nothing but delay the inevitable and make it that much worse once the can can no longer be kicked), and unless normal trade ties with Russia are restored.

Which means one thing: for Europe to resume the status quo, it needs to break away from the “western” alliance and the sanctions imposed upon the Kremlin which solely benefit the populist agenda of Washington, and certainly not Europe proper, which it is now quite clear, is far more reliant on Russia than vice versa. it is also something Putin apparently was aware of from the very beginning.

And now, that realization is starting to spread to Europe’s own countries, which – while the new cold war was only one of rhetoric were perfectly happy to go for the ride – but now that trade war has finally broken out, suddenly increasingly more want out.

As we reported previously, it all started with the Greeks, a nation of heavy food exports into Russia, who were the first to announce their displeasure with the “Stop Putin” coalition: